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Abused children and the courts

2014-07-15 16:51:08.429051+00 by Dan Lyke 0 comments

Rogers Cadenhead: M.C. Moewe and the Story That Got Away is an intro to a series of stories over at Daily Kos about mandatory reporters who've faced retaliation for coming forward with reports of sex abuse, and situations where children's reports of abuse are not taken seriously.

My reading so far is mixed. The Most Powerful Person in a Child Custody Case Isn't the Judge points out that the judges are often making decisions based solely on the decision of a single custody evaluator, and offers as an example:

The Seattle forensic psychologist Stuart A. Greenberg helped build the multimillion-dollar court expert industry of today.

In 2007, Greenberg committed suicide after being arrested for secretly filming people in his office bathroom. If his staff had not become suspicious of an air purifier, Greenberg would probably still be commanding $450 an hour to determine what's best for children in custody cases. He was a well-respected past president of the American Board of Forensic Psychology, helped develop a national certification exam for his field and taught training classes to other experts.

To a large extent this feels like some of the stories I read about foster families. I both know adults who have been through foster homes who campaign against the abuses of that system, and many of those abuses are particularly egregious, and then I also know foster parents who have dropped everything to go pick up a toddler from horrific circumstances because the kid needs a roof.

There's room for improvement, obviously, and we need more exposure and examination of the processes.

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